Late last week, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) announced adoption of several changes to its Safety Measurement System (SMS), which is the methodology used to identify and prioritize motor carriers for roadside inspections and other interventions. These changes, which were initially proposed in February 2023, will be rolled out and implemented in the coming months.
 
The agency has developed an Approved Changes Guide that outlines each change and a Side-by-Side guide comparing the current and updated methodology. Some highlights include:

• Reorganizing the current Behavior Analysis & Safety Improvement Categories (BASICs) into Compliance Categories
• Reducing inconsistences across roadside violations
• Simplifying severity weights
• Using the exact number of inspections and crashes to assign a percentile for a motor carrier

Below is the email update from FMCSA on the changes, and you can view how the changes will impact the prioritization of your motor carrier on the agency’s Preview Website. Further details are provided in the agency’s Federal Register notice.